LondonTown.com: Pioneering British sculptor celebrated at Tate next month

Released on: December 04, 2014, 6:19 am (EST)
Author: LondonTown.com
Industry: Travel
Six works by renowned sculptor go on display at Tate Britain.
LONDON, December 04, 2014 -- /EPR NETWORK/ -- One of Britain's most renowned sculptors, Phillip King, will mark his 80th birthday with a display of six works from the 1960s in the Duveen Galleries next month. The exhibition will run from 8th December 2014 to 1st February 2015 and will showcase the work of a man who changed the face of British sculpture. For information on this and other exhibitions at the Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London's two groundbreaking art galleries, see LondonTown.com, where you will also find updates and information on numerous other exhibitions, events and displays, as well as news on all hotels in London, restaurants, shops and sights.

King was a pioneer. His dissatisfaction with figurative, expressionistic sculpture of the 1950s, and his exposure to the new American painting in the 1960s, led him to experiment with abstraction, construction, material and colour. The display will include key works from Tate's collection made during this decade, including Genghis Khan 1963 and the important loan of Rosebud 1962 (private collection), his first coloured sculpture using fibreglass. Influenced by Matisse, King was a pioneer of colour as well as material, and this rich combination of materials, techniques, forms and colour enabled King to create sculpture detached from conventional, figurative ideas. King also deferred from tradition by choosing to place his works directly on the floor, occupying a space alongside the viewer, rather than on plinths.

King was born in Tunisia in 1934 and came to England in 1945. In 1957, he studied sculpture at Saint Martin's School of Art before working as an assistant to Henry Moore. He soon became influenced by developments in American art and began moving towards new abstraction in sculpture. In 1990 King was made Professor Emeritus of the Royal College and was the president of the Royal Academy from 1999-2004. In 2010 he received the International Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. He lives and works in London. For more information on this exhibition, see LondonTown.com.

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